A Fun Mom

A fun mom knows when it's time to stay home, and when it's time to go have some adventures!

We love Ledges.  The closest thing to hiking that we can get around here, Ledges always provides hours of stick gathering and rock throwing and boulder climbing and stream wading.

And this time we took Laney!

The water was chilly, and the mud was thick and oozy

 and her little six inch legs didn't seem to appreciate the experience too much.  Sometimes I forget that she's not a big bounding lab of some sort.

But she fluffed right back up and slept it off on the drive home.

Another fun mom day we left Laney behind, this time heading to the zoo!  We've been to the zoo so many times now... but it's always just as fun.  

Leah and I had a good laugh about this starfish.

 Look at these cute fish!

 Traditional picture by the girrafe 

 And another one!  Giraffe photobomber!

 These monkey statues are crazy realistic, and so fun.  Look out Adam!

The kids would have happily spent all day in the naturescape building with blocks and pretending to be homeless people in this hut.

And, of course, the tiny bouquet of flowers I gathered as each of the kids handed me their offerings reminded me of the incredible gift of an ordinary day, when motherhood and childhood are shared.

Some days being a fun mom means that we stay home and "do nothing" at all.  I watched the huge groups of daycare kids at the zoo being shuffled along at their leader's pace and said a silent prayer of gratitude, for the 10,000th time, that I have the privilege of being with my babies in the summer.  And my heart skipped a beat when I realized we only have five more summers like this one ahead of us before the birds start leaving the nest (and probably even a few less in which my oldest tells me that she's perfectly happy to just spend her summer days at home with her family). 

Being a a fun mom is the best job out there, and there is no other job I'd rather have.